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Mandoa, Mandoa! was the product of Winifred Holtby’s
passionate dedication to the study and reform of race relations
that began with a six-month tour of South Africa in 1926. From this
point onwards, she became a tireless supporter of the country’s
black trade union movement and campaigned for race equality at home
and overseas. She also became increasingly determined to write a
novel contrasting African and European ways of life, and this, her
fifth novel, fulfilled that aim.

Though the novel is the distillation of Holtby’s varied reform
work, its organising principle was the much-publicised coronation
of the Abyssinian Emperor Haile Selassie in November 1930 – an
event which also inspired Evelyn Waugh’s …

3752Mandoa, Mandoa!3Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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